1965
VIRGINIA SKA * BABA BROOKS * ISLAND 247 * UK
Another top B side from the studios of Treasure Isle, one that I guess takes it title from the long running TV series The Virginian. A Western in which James Drury was the anonymous title character, while Doug McClure played Trampas, his sidekick The series was popular enough to run for eight years from 1962, and no doubt during its run imparted lots of moral, ethical and political cant. It is likely that the musicians would fool around in the studio with the tune, melody or just a riff from the sound track of a TV show or film they had watched the previous evening, and from it would sometimes emerge a tune or rhythm, which would then adopt the name of the original. Using the most everyday, mundane or banal subjects as the object of art is of course a well known approach, and is used ad nauseam in contemporary creative practices, but, whether it's a bottle rack, stones in a spiral jetty, or the sound of traffic piped into a auditorium, for me, there is always the good, the bad and the ugly.
Other TV related cuts: Rawhide * It's Burkes Law * The Fugitive